Behind the Couch

Isle of the Damned  (2008) wears its Video Nasty influences on its badly dubbed, deliberately amateurish and bloodily soiled sleeve, lovingly parodying the European exploitation flicks that inspired it. I recently had the pleasure of catching up with its director, the elusive Antonello Giallo (aka Mark Colegrove) to have a chat about his tongue-in-flayed-cheek movie, Italian gore cinema, and the challenges of low-budget filmmaking… How did the idea for Isle of the Damned come about? Had you always conceived it as a parody? What inspired it? It was definitely a parody from the get-go, inspired by all the old Italian cannibal films. We knew that if we were to try to do a serious Italian cannibal film on our budget it would have ended up unintentionally hilarious. A serious film really wouldn’t be our style anyhow. The script was written by Mark Leake, and we had done one previous film together called Pleasures of the Damned , which is the prequel to Isle… Jack Steele is the main ...

Aaron over at The Death Rattle has just completed a mammoth trip through the darkest recesses of slasher movie history this month, notching up an impressive collection of reviews and articles on everyone's favourite slasher flicks. As well as all the usual suspects (Freddy, Jason, Michael), Aaron also explores lesser seen, obscure classics - as well as the Italian precursor to the slasher - the giallo - and offers up recommendations for horror fans who long for a little slasher nostalgia. Aaron invited a few fellow horror bloggers (including myself) to contribute and wax lyrical about their favourite stalk'n'slash films. So head over yonder , and prepare to lose your heart and strip nude for your killer, as The Death Rattle takes you on a doom-laden, blood-spattered trek through slasher movie history... ' Hello? Hello, who's there? Aaron is that you? This isn't funny anymore! Stop screwin' around you guys ...'

The prolific and versatile career of Sergio Martino spans many movie genres; sci-fi, horror, action, documentary, comedy, war and westerns. With titles such as The Mountain of the Cannibal God, The River of the Great Alligator, The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence, Naked and Violent, A Man Called Blade and Vendetta from the Future , it’s obvious Martino had a penchant for exploitative fare laden with copious amounts of sex and violence. It therefore comes as no surprise, given that Martino was most prolific in the Seventies and Eighties and not afraid to experiment or dabble with different genres, that he is perhaps most famed for his work in the horror/thriller arena; specifically his violent and stylish gialli. Produced throughout the Seventies – arguably the Golden Era of the exclusively Italian genre - several of these films featured memorable collaborations with prolific actress, Edwige Fenech. Perhaps because of Martino’s willingness to experiment and work in different g...

1995 Dir. Abel Ferrara When New York philosophy student Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor) is dragged off the street down a dark alley and bitten by a strange woman, she begins to turn into a vampire. Being somewhat predisposed to philosophical contemplation, Kathleen considers her rapidly changing perspectives on the nature of evil, addiction and humanity. Soon, her need for blood begins to consume her life and she realises that her very existence may have to be dedicated to finding her next fix... “ The entire world's a graveyard, and we, the birds of prey picking at the bones. That's all we are. We're the ones who let the dying know the hour has come .” In Ferrara’s earlier, no less gruelling film,  Bad Lieutenant , the character of Zoe (Zoë Lund, who also co-wrote the screenplay) declares "Vampires are lucky, they can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves." In this line of dialogue the nature of addiction is addressed with a dark poetry that rings...

1977 Dir. George Romero Insecure teenager Martin believes he is actually an 84-year-old vampire and that he must drink the blood of humans to remain alive. His belief is reinforced by his elderly cousin, Cuda, with whom he is sent to live. Cuda is convinced vampirism is part of a family curse. Driven by his insatiable blood lust, the frustrated and confused teen  forces himself to kill and feed, drugging his victims to reduce their suffering before opening their veins with a razor blade. However, his inhuman desires are almost overcome when he begins an affair and he starts to question his vampirism… Criminally undervalued by audiences and critics at the time of its release, Martin is now generally accepted to be among Romero's finest work to date; it’s certainly the director’s personal favourite of his own movies. With Martin , Romero slyly subverted the conventions of the vampire myth and added a truly fresh angle to the vampire movie genre; in its wake came films such as ...

1964 Dirs. Ubaldo Ragona & Sidney Salkow Due to a mysterious immunity he acquired when bitten by a rabid bat (!), Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the sole survivor of a devastating global pandemic. By day he spends his time collecting supplies, strengthening his fortifications and destroying the bodies of the living-dead plague victims. By night he boards himself into his house, as hordes of the vampiric post-human creatures leave their hiding places and congregate outside his home, baying for his blood… How much isolation can one person take? Based on Richard Matheson’s chilling novel, I Am Legend, The Last Man on Earth is a creepy, upsetting and thought-provoking exploration of one man’s increasingly fragile mental state as he struggles to accept his isolated existence in a dark new world. This particular adaptation is the most successful in evoking the desperation, mounting hopelessness and quiet dread of its central protagonist: the other two adaptations, The Ωmega M...

2009 Dir: Geoff Klein Stranded on their way to a bikini car-wash fundraiser, a group of young women find refuge in an abandoned gas station on the outskirts of town. Soon their broken down bus is the least of their worries as a maniacal axe-wielding mechanic starts picking them off one by one. Bikini Girls on Ice is a throwback to old school slasher-movie exploitation. Combining elements of House of Wax, Psycho, The Toolbox Murders and countless other 80s backwoods slasher flicks, it really doesn’t waste any time and cuts straight to the chase with a particularly atmospheric and taut opening scene in which a lone woman (Suzi Lorraine) is murdered by an unseen and particularly nasty assailant when she stops off at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Old conventions are rolled out as much as they are slyly exploited, particularly the use of phones and vehicles with a habit of breaking down. With a title like Bikini Girls on Ice , you’d be forgiven for thinking you know exactly...

'Your hand, your tongue, Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't.' - Lady Macbeth 'Appearances are deceptive.' - Aesop One of cinema's most compelling stock characters is the ‘femme fatale’ – a complex, seductive and dangerous woman whose cunning can sometimes belie her need for justice or vengeance, her rage, or a wounded heart, or sometimes just demonstrate her bitter cruelty. Less often, her motives were completely concealed from the viewer. She ensnares her lovers through sexual conquest, often leading them into compromising and deadly situations. ‘Femme fatale’ is French for ‘deadly woman’. Quite often these women were portrayed as somehow wronged and whose vengeance decimates all those who have wronged them. An archetypal character of literature, cinema and even art, the femme fatale is most frequently associated with Film Noir. Film Noir is a cinematic term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas – extremely popular th...

If the motorcycle-straddling residents of Zombie Town ring your bell, and the prospect of revisiting Camp Crystal Lake or watching those killer klowns from outer space do their thing for the umpteenth time fills you with unarticulated glee, then chances are, you’re probably something of a connoisseur of bad movies. If you prefer Alan Smithee to Avant-garde, I think you’ll know where I’m coming from. And its fine! You’re in good company. Let’s face it, sometimes having a good ole’ rummage through the bargain bin in your local discount shop and withdrawing your hand to find it clammily clutching some truly abhorrent title involving ‘atomic zombie moms’ is, lets be honest, truly sublime. But what is it that draws us time and time again to these cheap, tacky and downright bad movies? What’s more – what makes us reserve a special place in our heart for them? These are but a few of the burning questions author Nathan Shumate addresses in his brand new book The Golden Age of Crap . No s...

Guillermo del Toro has just announced that he is bowing out of his directing gig on The Hobbit . According to the filmmaker, the persistent postponement of the start date has compelled him to pursue other projects. "In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit , I am faced with the hardest decision of my life," del Toro said in a statement on OneRing.net. "After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien's Middle-earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures." Del Toro maintains that he will continue to co-write the screenplays with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, but will not be directing. He added: "I wish the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director."...